


'Tis The Damn Season

by justabitofdevineintervention



Series: Julie and the Phantoms Longfic [1]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: 'Tis The Damn Season by Taylor Swift, Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Small Town, Bisexual Julie Molina, But Not For Sex-Reasons The Plot Just Doesn't Work If They're Fifteen, Carrie POV, Carrie Wilson Redemption, Carrie Wilson-centric, Childhood Friends, Christmas, F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Hanukkah, Inspired by Music, Lesbian Carrie Wilson, M/M, Not a SongFic though, Pre-Successful Carrie Wilson, Pre-Successful Dirty Candy, Queer Flynn, Relationship With Limited Time, Semi-Successful Sunset Curve, So They're All About 22-23, Swearing, The Wilsons Are Jewish Now I Don't Make The Rules, i dont know how the american school system works and it probably shows, lets all pretend that flynn carrie and julie were never rivals in school
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28126365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justabitofdevineintervention/pseuds/justabitofdevineintervention
Summary: After leaving for LA to try and shoot her pop-group, Dirty Candy, into fame, Carrie Wilson hasn't been home in three years.It feels so natural to be with Flynn again. But their time is limited, no matter how hard they try to pretend it isn't.--------There's a lot of messing around with canon, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask! Most of it should be revealed at one point or another, though.
Relationships: Alex Mercer/Willie (background), Flynn/Carrie Wilson, Julie Molina/Luke Patterson (Background)
Series: Julie and the Phantoms Longfic [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2060493
Comments: 9
Kudos: 10





	1. Flynn

There’s an odd stab of sadness in Carrie Wilson’s heart as pulls into a parking space in front of her old school. Her parents’ house is just around the corner, but Carrie isn’t quite ready to be ‘home’ yet. It’s been three years, a few more minutes isn’t going to kill her father.

The school is more run-down than Carrie remembers it being - then again, most of her childhood memories glow with innocent youth and a sense of new-ness. There’s a thin layer of grime over the front glass doors, and the lockers she can see through it all seem more grey than blue.

Then she sees her.

It’s just the back of a head, long black braids swaying gently in the early-evening breeze, and she’s taller, no longer the short girl she used to tease, but it is entirely and undeniably  _ her. _

Carrie almost throws her car door off its hinges, she’s so desperate to get out.

“Flynn!” She calls, cupping one hand to her mouth. “Hey, Flynn! I’m back!”

Flynn turns, and Carrie notices that she’s holding a cardboard box full of red exercise books. She files that information away for later, because her second observation is a look of fury on Flynn’s face.

The girl pivots, places the box on a stone bench, and then storms towards Carrie.

“How dare you,” she says, jabbing one finger in Carrie’s direction. Carrie tries to take a step back, but she’s cornered against her car. “How dare you?” Flynn repeats when she reaches Carrie. “You left, and you think that you can just show up and ‘Hey, Flynn!” me, like nothing happened?” Flynn laughs, but it’s bitter and insincere. “You left us when we needed you the most, Carrie.” Flynn spits her name out like it’s poison, and Carrie isn’t sure what hurts worse. Flynn’s tone, or the fact that she knows Flynn is right. “So you don’t get to fucking do this. You don’t get to show up and act like we’re still friends. Because we’re not. And we haven’t been since the day you abandoned us. Since the day you abandoned me.” Flynn’s voice cracks on the last word, and Carrie knows that she’s inwardly cursing herself for sounding like she’s about to cry.

There’s a silence that seems deafening after Flynn’s outburst.

“I’m sorry,” Carrie says, and she knows that those two words don’t even begin to cover what she needs to say. But it’s a start, and suddenly Carrie finds all the words pouring out of her. “I know I fucked up, and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you, or Julie-”

“But you did,” Flynn interrupts. “You did hurt us.”

“I know,” Carrie says. “If I could go back and undo it, I would, but I can’t.” Carrie’s yelling now, and in the otherwise silent street, it’s loud. “I can’t, Flynn! I’ve regretted my decisions almost every day, but I can’t take them back. I missed you,” she added, quietly.

“Then why didn’t you come back?” Flynn asks.

_ Because I thought Dirty Candy still had a chance. Because I was foolish, and I put my career in front of you. Because. Because. Because. _

“Because I was scared,” Carrie says, finally. “I knew you’d be mad at me, and I knew you’d be right. And I couldn’t stand to see that look of disappointment on your face again. Not after I told you I was leaving the first time.”

Carrie remembers the day she left clearer than she remembers last week.

* * *

_ It was mid-June, and the sun was almost aggressively bright. Carrie and Flynn were over at Julie’s, and the three of them were piled on top of each other, watching a movie. (The Notebook - Flynn’s favourite, not that it mattered) _

_ “I’m leaving,” Carrie says. _

_ The room seems to freeze. Even the movie on the TV stops. (That was courtesy of Julie’s shitty wifi, but it definitely added to the drama of the moment) _

_ Flynn and Julie both jump off Carrie - who was at the bottom of their pile - in the same moment. _

_ There’s a look of heartbreak and confusion on Julie’s face, and that alone feels like a knife to Carrie’s heart. _

_ Flynn is angry. There’s no heartbreak on her face, no confusion. Just disappointment and anger. Years after, Carrie will still wonder who that anger and disappointment are directed to. Is it at Carrie, for leaving? Or at Flynn, for letting herself get hurt? They both seem equally likely to Carrie. _

_ “When?” Julie asks, her voice low and shaky, sounding like she’s trying not to cry. _

_ “Tomorrow,” Carrie says, her own voice surprisingly steady. She supposes she can’t be any sadder about leaving her friends than she was leaving her parents. _

_ Carrie wonders why her heart hurts so much, if that’s the case. _

_ “Tomorrow?” Flynn repeats, incredulously. “And why didn’t tell us sooner?” _

_ “I’m sorry.” _

_ They’re the only words Carrie can muster. _

_ It’s not enough. _

* * *

“Julie missed you,” Flynn says. “I didn’t see the point. You left me, so why should I regret it.”

Her next sentence is so quiet that Carrie has to strain forward to hear it.

“I missed you anyway.”

Carrie laughs because, in the few seconds following Flynn’s admission, it’s the only thing Carrie can think of that will express her happiness and relief. It’s inappropriate, perhaps, given the weight of the moment, but Carrie is too ecstatic to really care.

“I missed you too.” Carrie surges forward suddenly, wrapping her arms around Flynn. She doesn’t know if her hug is welcome, and Carrie fully expects to be pushed away. So when Flynn wraps her arms back around Carrie, returning her hug with twice the force.

They stand like that, between the front of Los Feliz and Carrie’s car, for a long while, like neither of them wants to be the first to pull back, the first to let go.

The moment does have to end eventually, and when it does, it’s Flynn that ends it.

She shoves her hands in her pockets and coughs awkwardly. Flynn takes a step back, and Carrie tries to mirror her, only to be reminded of the fact that she is already backed up against her car.

“I have to get those books to my classroom,” Flynn says, motioning with her head towards the cardboard box. “They’ve been sitting on mine and Julie’s kitchen table for the past week, and if they stay there any longer, one of us is going to die.” Flynn laughs, and there’s actual joy in her laugh, and it’s so different to her earlier bitterness that Carrie almost cries.

Flynn starts to walk back to the box, then hesitates. “Do you want to come with me?” She offers.

Carrie is startled out of a daze she hadn’t realised she’d fallen into. “Yeah. Yeah, sure.” Something registers in Carrie’s mind. “Your classroom?”

Flynn starts walking to the box again, and only answers Carrie after she’s picked it up. “Mrs Harrison retired last year,” she says, as though that explains everything.

“Okay?” Carrie has to admit, she doesn’t seem the connection. When she looks back on this conversation, she feels like an idiot, but at the time, the question didn’t seem so stupid.

Flynn balanced the box on one hip and unlocked the doors with one hand.

Carrie was right, the inside of Los Feliz was more run down on the inside.

_ Or,  _ whispered a little voice in Carrie’s head,  _ maybe you’ve just gotten so used to the upper end of Hollywood that anything less than rich seems dirty to you. _

Carrie pushed that little voice down. Because ignoring your problems always meant they went away.

“They needed a new teacher for the music program,” Flynn explained, leading Carrie through the corridors of the school that used to be so familiar to her.

In a way, walking through the halls of Los Feliz feels like coming home. At the same time, it drives in the point that Carrie has been away for three years. These walls that were once as familiar to her as her own home now feel like strangers.

Except-

It’s Carrie that’s the stranger here, not the walls. The walls are made of the exact same concrete that they were when she left. The hallways wind in the same easy to navigate way that they did three years ago. 

Even the girl leading her through them is the same. (And also holding her hand. Carrie’s not sure when that started, but she’s certainly not mad about it.)

Carrie is different. Carrie has changed. She’s older, but she doesn’t feel wiser. If anything, Carrie feels like she knows less than before.

“-me and Julie were there,” Flynn was saying, and suddenly Carrie was reminded of reality. “They knew we were good at music, so Rachel offered us the job.”

“Who’s Rachel?” Carrie asked.

“Principal Lessa,” Flynn explains. She drops Carrie’s hand to fish the keys out of her pocket, and Carrie has to actually  _ bite her tongue  _ to stop herself from complaining.

Carrie nods and makes a noise she hopes sounds like agreement. “Is that even legal? You two are, what, twenty-two -”

“Jules is twenty-three, actually,” Flynn says, and her tone has turned into something a little stiffer than before. Carrie is suddenly reminded that this is not the girl she left behind.

“Twenty-two and twenty-three,” Carrie amends, “And neither of you have the college degrees necessary to teach.”

Flynn shrugs and pushes the doors to the music classroom open with the hip she isn’t leaning the box on. “What is ‘legal’?”

Carrie smiles and follows Flynn into the music room. “Good point.”

For some reason, entering the music room feels more like coming home than any other place Carrie’s been all day. It’s exactly the same as Carrie remembers it. Flynn and Julie have kept it in good condition.

Flynn puts the box down on the piano and turns back to Carrie. “That’s all I needed to do, really. Honestly, I probably didn’t even need to bring them here. I just needed to get them out of the house so we could stop eating breakfast on the floor.”

There was a question nagging at the back of Carrie’s mind, and although she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer, she asked it anyway. “Are you and Julie, like, a thing?"

“Oh, God no,” Flynn says immediately. “No. Never. I mean, Julie’s great, and I love her, but-” Flynn met Carrie’s eyes, and Carrie was reminded of the few months before she left - “not like that.”

Carrie should definitely ignore the fluttery feeling in her chest that Flynn’s words give her.

The walk back to outside the school takes far less time than Carrie would have liked it to. Some quiet part of her knows that she should definitely go see her mother and father - her dad’s been texting her every ten minutes for the past hour, and Carrie  _ is  _ starting to feel guilty - but a much louder part of her wants to keep talking to Flynn.

It’s that part that asks Flynn if she wants to drive around.

_ “Just for a bit,” Carrie adds hurriedly, worried she might have offended Flynn somehow. “You can show me the sight.” _

The ‘sight’ was an inside joke she and Flynn had come up with years ago, and it referred to the large willow tree that sat in the very centre of Bluehill Lake. According to sixteen-year-old Flynn and Carrie, it was the ‘coolest thing to happen in Bluehill since that time Howard Richards accidentally set himself on fire while dressed up as Santa’.

“Alright,” Flynn had said, and she had tilted her head at Carrie in a way that felt like she was challenging her to something, although Carrie had no clue what. “My car or yours?”

“Mine,” Carrie said. Partially because she didn’t want her mother and/or father to see her car parked outside the school, and partially because she remembered Flynn being the sort of driver that made you fear for your life every five seconds.

“Alright,” Flynn repeated.

It’s nice, Carrie thinks, to just be around someone again. And it’s nice that it’s Flynn.

Somehow, through all the nights Carrie had cried herself to sleep thinking of her friends, it had never quite occurred to her how much she missed Flynn until they were both sitting in her car, belting along to ‘Girls Like Girls’.

She had missed Flynn the same way she would have missed half her soul.

It’s nice to be home.

* * *

They never actually make it to the Sight. Instead, Carrie parks her car by the dock on the lake, and they sit there for a while.

It’s comfortable, in a way Carrie hasn’t felt in years.

She wonders if that has anything to do with the girl sitting beside her.

“So,” Flynn starts. “What’s it like in LA?” Carrie thinks there’s a hint of something that might be either bitterness, or sadness, or a mix of both, in Flynn’s voice.

“It’s fine.” Carrie shrugs. “Not what I thought it would be. I imagined this glamorous world of red carpet parties and fancy clothes and sold-out shows, and I - I got none of that. And it was worse,” Carrie added, “Because you weren’t there. Because I knew you were back here, in Bluehill, rightfully pissed at me. I have to say, I don’t think I could have enjoyed myself anywhere knowing that.”

Flynn put a hand to her heart and made an ‘aww’ sound. “Carrie,” she says. Her tone is lighthearted, but Carrie knows Flynn is touched regardless.

She was telling the truth about LA. When the record deal with Destiny Management fell through, Carrie had been so close to coming back to Bluehill. Kayla had stopped her, saying that they can’t give up just because one thing went wrong.

Carrie remembers wanting to scream in Kayla’s face that it wasn’t ‘one thing’. That now she was here, that everything was coming to fruition, that she’d realised she wanted none of this. She wanted to play music, but not like this. She wanted to play music privately, at home, where she could pour her whole heart and soul into lyrics and if she broke down crying because her emotions were simply too big, well, no one had to know.

Instead, Carrie had slipped on her mask and nodded. She’d stayed. No matter how much she wanted to stop, Carrie kept going. This ‘dream’ had been a part of her for so long, that Carrie wasn’t sure who she was without it.

“How’s Julie?” Carrie asks, if only to stop the torrent of thoughts crashing through her head.

“She’s better than she was when you left.” Carrie knows that Flynn doesn’t mean to hurt her (or maybe she does, Carrie knows she deserves it, and Flynn can be spiteful at times) and that she’s probably talking about Rose, but still. It hurts.

“She’s playing music again.” There’s pride in Flynn’s voice, and Carrie can feel her own heart swell with pride for her friend as well. “Julie didn’t play in the year after Rose died.”

The  _ ‘and you left’ _ went unsaid. Carrie can’t help but wonder if Julie would have played again sooner had Carrie stayed,

“Oh, and-” Flynn leans in conspiratorially - “she’s got a boyfriend. Some boy from LA, in a rock band. Luke. He’s coming down with some of his friends for Christmas in a couple of days.”

“What does Ray think of him?” Carrie asks. She thinks she knows the answer - Ray’s only criteria for Julie’s boyfriend/girlfriend was that they made Julie happy - but it seems like an appropriate question.

Flynn snorts. “He hasn’t met him yet. I've only met him once, before they started dating.”

Carrie whistles. “Meeting the parents on Christmas? Tough.”

“It’s not Ray that Luke needs to worry about,” Flynn mutters.

Carrie smiles. Flynn has always been fiercely protective of her friends. Carrie remembers the time Mr Watson marked Julie down on their persuasive essays because he disagreed with her stance. Julie had insisted that Rose had it under control, but Flynn had still stormed into the teacher’s office and demanded that he be fair.

Julie used to joke that Flynn got her protectiveness from Rose. Carrie wondered if she made those jokes anymore.

“Do you have anyone? A pretty girl on your arm at parties?” Flynn teases.

“No,” Carrie says. She glances over at Flynn, and stops short. The sun is half-burried below the horizon, showering the world in golden light.

‘The Golden Hour,’ she, Flynn and Julie used to call this time. It didn’t last for anywhere near an hour, but Carrie thought it sounded nice.

Flynn looks like she’s glowing in the golden light, She’s slightly messy - her shirt is half untucked, and her winged eyeliner is a little smudged, but suddenly Carrie can’t think of a more beautiful sight than the girl next to her.

“What?” Flynn asks, sensing that Carrie meant to say more. She turns to face the blonde.

Carrie doesn’t know what comes over her. Directly afterwards, she would put her actions down to her exhaustion. She would put them down to how much she missed her friend.

Carrie kisses Flynn.


	2. Home Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, this is very not-edited...  
> I'm working on the next chapter as we speak though, and I'm having too much fun with that to edit this chapter at the moment.  
> Enjoy!

Carrie’s wanted to do this since she was fourteen-years-old.

It’s not even a long kiss, just a peck, the briefest brush of lips meeting before Carrie pulls away, but she feels a pit open in her stomach.

_You’re such an idiot. You two don’t talk for three years and then the first thing you do when you see her is kiss her? You’ve fucked everything up, Carrie Wilson._

“What-?” Flynn cuts herself off, her brow furrowed.

“I’m so sorry,” Carrie pushes herself backwards, trying to give Flynn as much space as possible. “Shit, Flynn, I’m so sorry.”

“Wait.” Flynn says. “Hold on.”

Carrie is silent. Her eyes are fixed on Flynn, who looks like she’s in deep though.

“Why?” Flynn asks, suddenly.

Carrie took a deep breath. It wasn’t like she could fuck up any more than she already had, so she might as well go fucking big.

“I’ve been in love with you since we were fourteen,” Carrie admits. The weight of how long that is - eight years of loving Flynn. Five years of seeing her every day and falling further. Three years where she spent every day running from her feelings. “I’ve been in love with you since the day you climbed on top of a table and announced to the entire cafeteria that anyone with a problem with queer people could answer to you. I’ve loved you since the day I saw you, even before I knew what love was. Even before I knew I liked girls, I knew, Flynn, that I liked you.”

“No,” Flynn says. Carrie winces, and then Flynn continues. “Why did you stop kissing me?”

“What?” It’s Carrie’s turn to be confused.

“I’ve loved you since we were fourteen,” says Flynn, echoing Carrie’s words with a smile. “I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you perform - so confident and happy. I’ve loved you since the moment I laid eyes on you, before I knew your name. I’ve loved you for almost as long as I can remember, Carrie.

“I tried to stop. I thought there was no way that _you_ could _love me_. Not like that. When you left, I thought you’d never loved me at all. Not in any way.”

The air in the car is thick with the weight of their confessions.

“Do you remember,” Carrie starts, “The few months before I left?”

Flynn nods, smiling softly. “I do.”

They had balanced on a knife’s edge. So close to something that neither of them dared to name, for fear it would turn to smoke and vanish. Three words that they were both too scared to say.

When Rose had died, it was nearly forgotten, half-drowned in their collective grief. Still, when Carrie saw Flynn, the air would have seemed to buzz with an energy that was too much to label.

“I was scared,” Carrie says. Flynn reaches over and gently takes her hand, squeezing it lightly.

“So was I,” she replies, softly. “But I’m not scared anymore, Carrie. If you wanted…” Flynn trails off, leaving the rest of her sentence unsaid, instead reaching out with her free hand to cup Carrie’s face.

“If you wanted,” Flynn repeats.

Carrie nods. Flynn crashes their lips together.

There are no fireworks, or magic sparks. There’s just Flynn, and Carrie, and the air they share.

There’s a moment where Carrie pulls back, “I can’t stay here, Flynn.”

“I know.” Flynn’s hands find the label of Carrie’s jacket, “But not tonight. We have tonight.”

Flynn pulls her back in by her labels.

An unspoken agreement forms by that lake. Carrie knows that they’ll have to talk about it, someday, but for now…

For now, she just lets herself be happy with Flynn.

* * *

52 Honeylane Road.

Carrie hasn’t been back to her childhood home in three years. It’s a small, one-story brick house, and it’s what her LA friends would have called ‘modest’. (A word they used to mean ‘small and cramped,’ and usually an insult). Regardless, it’s a welcome difference to the more modern, yet soulless, mansion Carrie lived in back up in LA. (Her dad had bought the mansion at the hight of his career, but none of them had ever lived there. Now, it was where Carrie and the Dirty Candy girls lived.)

Carrie had dropped Flynn back at the school so Flynn could drive back to hers. Now, there’s an empty space next to her, where Flynn should be. It’s a feeling Carrie got used to in LA, but now she’s had Flynn beside her again, it feels emptier than before.

Carrie takes a deep breath, pushes down her emotions, fixes her jacket and rings the doorbell.

Inside the house, voices call out. There’s the sound of quick, pattering footsteps - _is that a_ dog _?_ \- followed by slower, heavier steps that Carrie can recognise as her father’s.

Robert Wilson (stage name Trevor) opens the door and immediately envelopes his daughter in a hug.

“Carrie,” he says. “It’s so nice to have you home.”

“Did you get a dog?” Carrie asks, her voice muffled into her father’s shoulder.

She can feel a bundle of fur run around her feet that points to ‘yes,’ but she wants to be certain.

“You don’t see me in three years-” her father started in mock offence.

“We facetimed at least twice a week,” Carrie points out. “It’s been a day.”

“-and the first thing you say when you see me again is ‘did you get a dog?’” He continues, ignoring her interruption. “No ‘nice to see you Dad, how have you been’?”

“Nice to see you Dad,” Carrie repeats, deadpan. “How have you been?”

“Great, actually - no, Rory, get back.” Her dad leans down and picks up the ball of fur at Carrie’s feet, which proves to indeed, be a puppy.

It looks like someone’s split coffee or hot chocolate on it, with shaggy white fur that has pale brown splotches splashed randomly across it. It’s one of those small, excitable breeds (Carrie thinks it’s probably a terrier of some sort, but she’s never been good with dogs, so the only thing she’s sure about is that it most likely isn’t a poodle). The dog - Rory, Carrie guesses - has a bright red collar with a gold pendant.

Carrie cocks one eyebrow at her father. “Did you name the dog after a character from _Doctor Who_?”

“Maybe,” her father says, clearly holding back giggles. He turns and calls over his shoulder. “Carrie’s home!”

Her mother comes bustling out of Carrie’s old room. Oliva Wilson is wearing pink poodle pyjamas, with curlers in her hair, and it’s such a familiar sight that Carrie lets out a choked noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

Of all the things she’d missed about Bluehill, Carrie had not expected her mother’s habits of parading around with curlers in to be one of them.

“Carrie.” Oliva sweeps her daughter up in a hug.

“Can’t breathe,” Carrie says, lightly. “Mom. Can’t breathe.”

Oliva hurriedly releases Carrie and stepps back, wiping her hands on her apron. “Sorry, love. You’re just in time for dinner,” she says, her tone returning to the bright one she’d had when she greeted her daughter. “Your father made his latkes, and they look positively delicious.”

After giving up his music career, Robert Wilson had taken up cooking. He was horrific at it, for a while, and for a couple of weeks Carrie either ordered takeaway or ate at Julie or Flynn’s houses. Her father got better though, and now, more often than not, his food was delicious.

Carrie had been thoroughly aware of how much she’s missed her father’s latkes while in LA. He’d sent her the recipe, but it wasn’t the same, somehow.

“That sounds great,” Carrie says, and she means it. “Can I come in?”

“Yes, yes.” Her father shuffles to one side to make room. “Come in, sit down. Your room is practically the same as when you left, although your mother was just in there doing some dusting.”

* * *

The pile of blankets she left on her unmade bed the day she left are still there, Carrie notices. She drops her bag by the door, resolving to unpack tomorrow, and flops down onto her bed.

The blankets are just as comfortable as Carrie remembers them being.

She rolls onto her side and pulls her phone out of her pocket.

**To: Mercer, Alex🌈**

**From: Wilson, Carrie (Me)**

_Hey_

_I did not get murdered_

_So you can tell Reggie he was wrong._

Alex’s friend - and by extension, Carrie’s friend - Reggie had been absolutely convinced Carrie was going to die in Bluehill, like she was in some sort of horror movie.

The three dots that signled Alex was writing appeared. He always was very good at responding to messages quickly. This was generally a good thing, except for when Carrie was drunk. Then it was a very bad thing.

**From: Mercer, Alex🌈**

**To: Wilson, Carrie (Me)**

_Will do_

_For the record, I had complete faith in you the entire time_

Carrie snorted. Alex had been almost as convinced as Reggie that she was going to die, no matter how many times she assured them that ‘no, I’ll be fine’.

**To: Mercer, Alex🌈**

**From: Wilson, Carrie (Me)**

_Yeah, right._

Alex had shown up backstage at one of Dirty Candy’s earlier concerts (Technically they were opening for some boyband, but Alex had seemed much more interested in Dirty Candy, which was surprising, to say the least) and Carrie was infinately glad he had.

She knew a lot of people in LA, thanks to her father’s career, ias well as the Dirty Candy girls, but Alex and his band (and his boyfriend) were the only friends she had, and often felt like the closest thing she had to family in Hollywood.

**From: Mercer, Alex🌈**

**To: Wilson, Carrie (Me)**

_I promise!_

_How’s the hometown?_

**To: Mercer, Alex🌈**

**From: Wilson, Carrie (Me)**

_It’s good_

_Nice to be home_

Carrie hesitates before adding:

_Oh also I got a gf_

**From: Mercer, Alex🌈**

**To: Wilson, Carrie (Me)**

_YOU._

_WHAT?_

_I spend two years trying to set you up and yet five hours in a small town is all it takes?_

_What’s her name?_

Alex is trying to sound bitter, Carrie knows, but his excitement is clear. He’s one of the most supportive people she knows, somehow still having faith in her after all the time’s she’s broken down in his arms.

**To: Mercer, Alex🌈**

**From: Wilson, Carrie (Me)**

_Flynn_

**From: Mercer, Alex🌈**

**To: Wilson, Carrie (Me)**

_CARRIE WILSON_

_PLEASE TELL ME THAT IS NOT WHO I THINK IT IS_

Like Carrie said. Supportive.

**To: Mercer, Alex🌈**

**From: Wilson. Carrie (Me)**

_That depends on who you think it is._

**From: Mercer, Alex🌈**

**To: Wilson, Carrie (Me)**

_The Flynn you’ve been pining over since ‘pretty much forever’?_

_Your words. Not mine._

_Are you having a holiday fling with /that/ Flynn?_

**To: Mercer, Alex🌈**

**From: Wilson, Carrie (Me)**

_That’s the Flynn._

_Relax alex_

_Its fine_

Carrie turns her phone off before Alex has a chance to reply. He is, without a doubt, the one braincell in his band, and she doesn’t want to listen to him being right.

Not on this specific night, anyway.

Because Carrie knows that she and Flynn can’t last. She knows that in a few days, Carrie will be making the drive back to LA, back to her life in the ‘spotlight’, and things will go back to the way they were.

Carrie snuggles down into the blankets, wrapping them around her shoulders as though they can protect her from the future.

She knows that time will come. That she can’t stop it.

But for now, Carrie ignores it. She tries to concentrate, instead, on how nice it is to be home again.


	3. Julie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually edited this chapter! Whoo!

Carrie fell asleep in her clothes. It was a childhood habit that she’d tried desperately to break whilst in LA. She’d succeeded for a few months, but all it took was one late-night concert for her to fall right back into it.

Carrie woke up when Rory jumped on her. She’s a little ashamed to admit that she screamed in surprise, loud and long enough to draw the attention of her parents.

“What’s wrong?” Olivia asks, worry creasing her forehead.

Robert follows her into the room a moment later and bursts out laughing. There’s a beat where Oliva’s face is the picture of confusion before she starts laughing too.

Carrie glares at her parents. “This isn’t funny.”

“It’s a little funny,” Bobby says. “You have to admit.”

“I do not,” Carrie retorts, crossing her arms. “Now shoo so I can get dressed.” She turns her glare on Rory, although the dog is just the right amount of adorable, and Carrie feels her heart melt the second she lays eyes on him. “You too.”

Still laughing, her parents retreat from Carrie’s room, shutting the door behind them (although Oliva ducks back in to grab Rory, because he seemed to have decided that Carrie’s room was now his room as well.)

Now that she’s looking at it bathed in a hazy, late-dawn light instead of the fuzzy, I-ate-too-much-food-and-can’t-be-bothered-to-turn-the-light-on lens of the night before, Carrie can see just how similar her room is to the day she left.

Her walls are still the same pale pink colour - or, at least, she assumes they are, because they’re still covered in torn out notebook pages covered in lyrics. Her desk still has her books from senior year stacked on it, and there’s an open pencil case next to them. Her carpet is still the white, shaggy carpet that fifteen-year-old Carrie had loved to wiggle her toes in, and that seventeen-year-old Carrie had accidentally spilt beer on. (That had been close. Somehow, all that remained of that incident was a slightly dirty looking patch underneath the window opposite the door.)

Her curtains have changed, though. Instead of the heavy blackout blinds Carrie used to have, the windows are now adorned with sheer white curtains. Carrie had no idea why, of all the things in her room to replace, the curtains had been chosen, but she had greater things to worry about, and so pushed it to the back of her mind.

Although she still made a mental note to ask her mother about it later.

Carrie checked her phone. She was not at all surprised to see that she had several unread messages from Alex, as well as one from Reggie.

The message from Reggie just read:

**From: Peters, Reggie🍕**

**To: Wilson, Carrie (Me)**

_ i cant believe im the only single one in our group now _

Carrie smiled and shot him a quick response.

**To: Peters, Reggie🍕**

**From: Wilson, Carrie(Me)**

_ Lol _

_ RIP your love life _

There was a message from Flynn, which made Carrie’s stomach flutter in a way that was distinctly unfair. Carrie hadn’t got a message from Flynn in three years, so seeing Flynn’s name (Chase, Flynn💔 - could eighteen-year-old Carrie have been any more obvious) gave her butterflies. 

Julie had texted her a couple of times during her first few months in LA, but those messages thinned out and then stopped within six months. It was only to be expected, since Carrie never responded, but it still hurt, for some reason. Carrie remembered pushing the hurt down. It wasn’t something she had any right to feel, not when she was the one in the wrong.

**From: Chase, Flynn💔**

**To: Wilson, Carrie (Me)**

_ Me and Jules are getting breakfast from Allison’s. Wanna come? Be there at 8:30. _

Carrie spent a few moments staring at the message. It was so casual. So normal.

The thought almost made her cry.

**To: Chase, Flynn💔**

**From: Wilson, Carrie (Me)**

_ Ill be there _

Carrie checks the clock. It’s seven-fifty, which she reasons gives her more than enough time to shower, change and get to Allison’s. She remembers the cafe, a warm place, that made you feel immediately safe upon entering, being only about a five-minute walk from her parent’s house.

Carrie throws back the blankets, resolving to make the best of her limited time in Bluehill.

* * *

Twenty minutes and a shitty coffee later, Carrie is walking to Allison’s.

Because Carrie has an unfortunate habit of being slightly less than a zombie before at least one cup of coffee, she’d asked her mother to make her a quick cup while she was in the shower. Unfortunately, Carrie had forgotten that, although her family had many talents, coffee making was not one of them.

She’d managed three sips before subtly pouring the rest down the sink and disappearing back to her room to finish getting ready.

Carrie missed not having to dress like she had her life together all the time, and therefore had packed a wardrobe consisting entirely of clothes that were comfortable first, stylish second.

On this particular day, she’d chosen a plain white blouse, tucked into mom jeans, and thrown a pink sweatshirt over the top of it all. It was the comfiest thing she owned, that sweatshirt, and she didn’t wear it nearly enough for her liking in LA.

She may or may not have pulled on a beanie to save the trouble of actually doing her hair.

Carrie is painfully aware of the fact that she arrives at Allison’s a full fifteen minutes before she’s supposed to be there, but after spending two minutes wrestling with herself, decides that it is nonetheless better to stand outside than to go in and sit down. At least this way she looks like she’s actively waiting for someone, and not just a loner eating breakfast by herself.

Thankfully - or perhaps unfortunately, as Carrie thought at the time - Julie has always had a habit of getting places early as well.

So, at eight twenty-five, Carrie felt a tap on her shoulder that turned out to be Julie Molina.

Carrie feels like she’s been swept back to three years ago when she turns around.

At first glance, twenty-three-year-old Julie looks identical to eighteen-year-old Julie. Julie’s wearing a blue-grey sweater and plaid pants, which is a style that only she can pull off. Carrie doesn’t think she’s grown at all in three years, and her hair, which is half pulled back, has the same bounce and curl that it used to, albeit having a tiny bit less length to it.

Upon closer inspection, Carrie sees all the changes she missed at first.

There’s the steely gleam in Julie’s eye, forged in the flames of hurt. Carrie feels a twist in her gut when she realises that she contributed to that pain. Julie stands more confidently than Carrie has ever seen her. When she moves, it’s with purpose.

But when she talks, it’s the same, kind voice that Carrie remembers. “Hi, Carrie.”

Carrie can’t help herself. She pulls Julie in for a hug.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers in Julie’s ear.

“I forgive you,” Julie whispers back. “I didn’t want to at first, though. I was so mad at you.”

There were a lot of things Carrie had always admired about Julie, but her ability to put herself first was one that she would always marvel at. Julie set boundaries when she needed to, and she didn’t let people disrespect them. Carrie would never have expected Julie to forgive her immediately.

“But I thought about it,” she continued. “And I was missing you too much to stay mad. Then I was just sad for a bit. Then I realised that I couldn’t mope forever.” Julie pulled back. “So, I forgive you, Carrie. Life is too short to hate people.”

“Thank you,” Carrie says. She feels a tear roll down her cheek and is suddenly glad that she didn’t put make-up on that morning.

Julie reaches forward and wipes the tear off Carrie’s face. She smiles gently. “Should we go grab a seat while we wait for Flynn? Ten to one says she won’t be here until eight thirty-five at least.”

Carrie laughed. That was probably true. While Julie had a habit of being five minutes early to everything, Flynn was the opposite, always arriving five minutes late.

“Don’t you two live together?”

“And your point is?”

They took a table by the window, and ordered a coffee and hot chocolate respectively. Carrie remembered Allison’s as having good coffee, but compared to the disaster that was her mother’s attempt earlier, she was sure that anything would taste like heaven.

“So,” Carrie says after the waitress leaves. “Luke.”

“I swear, I’m going to kill her,” Julie says, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that she’s referring to Flynn.

“What did I do this time?” Flynn picks up on it as well, her sudden appearance by the table making both Julie and Carrie jump. She grabs Carrie’s hand and kisses it before sliding into the empty chair between Carrie and Julie. “Hey, babe,” she says.

It was unfair, Carrie decided, that a single word could make her stomach do an entire gymnastics routine. Especially after so long away from Flynn, and especially when she couldn’t have it forever.

Still, it was something she could live with for the week.

“Wait.” Julie holds up a finger. “Hold up. I’m sorry. What did I miss?” She demands. “Did you two finally get your shit together? I mean it only took you eight years,” she adds, “but still.

Carrie made eye contact with Flynn, who looked suspiciously like she was trying to hold back laughter. Carrie sighed. “We both pined to you, didn’t we?”

Julie laughed. “Yes. Do you have any idea how exhausting it was to hear you -” she turned and jabbed a finger at Flynn - “talk about how ‘beautiful Carrie is when she’s concentrating,’ and you -” she turned and pointed at Carrie - “talk about how ‘amazingly wonderful Flynn is, and how brave,’ and not be able to say anything? Do you?”

“Sorry?” Carrie tries.

“Nuh-uh.” Julie crosses her arms and shakes her head. “I can forgive you for abandoning me and Flynn, Wilson, but there is a line and that is it.” But there’s a smile on her face, and when Carrie and Flynn laugh, Julie only bothers to keep up the act for a moment before joining in.

“How long are you here for?” Julie asks after the laughter stops.

“About a week,” Carrie says. “I have to get back to LA soon, to keep working with the girls. We’re trying to work out a record deal with Sky High Records.” Carrie shifts uncomfortably in her seat when she says it.

It wasn’t that Carrie didn’t want Dirty Candy to get the deal, the girls had all been so happy when she told them, it wasn’t the sort of thing Carrie would ever take away from them, but Dirty Candy and everything that came with it felt like it trapped her now. Carrie didn’t have the same dreams as she did when she was eighteen.

“That’s amazing,” Julie cries, reaching over the table and giving Carrie an awkward half-hug.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Flynn pouts. “We spent, like, three hours together last night.”

Carrie shrugged. “It didn’t come up.”

“It didn’t come up.” Flynn threw her hands in the air. “Do you hear that, Jules? Do you? ‘It didn’t come up’.  
Julie, to her credit, covered her mouth with her hand to hide her laughter.

“Carrie. I love you. But that is the sort of thing you bring up. I have a bottle of champagne in the boot of my truck that we could have popped.”

“Is that where it went?” Julie asked dryly.

“Listen, it was your idea to take my truck out to watch the fireworks on 4th of July,” Flynn said, holding up her hands.

Carrie snickered, which must have reminded Flynn of why they were talking about the champagne in the first place, because she swivelled back around. “I’m going to go get it.”

“The champagne?” Carrie asked, wrinkling her forehead.

“Flynn, your car’s at home,” Julie points out. “You aren’t walking home just to get some champagne that the staff probably won’t even let us drink.”

“We’re all of age.”

“That is not the point.”

“Fine.” Flynn turns to Carrie. “You’re coming back to ours after this and we’re all getting day-drunk on champagne, okay?”

“Sure,” Carrie said. “But the deal hasn’t even gone through yet.”

“It’s definitely going to,” Julie says as their drinks arrive. There’s a brief pause in the conversation while Julie and Carrie thank the waitress and Flynn orders a drink for herself (iced chocolate, because they came with ice cream, and Flynn loved ice cream) “You’re talented, Carrie. And you’ve worked hard to get to where you are.”

“Thank you.” Carrie smiled.

She took a sip of her coffee and then immediately spat it back into the cup. “For fuck’s sake, is there anywhere I can get decent coffee around here?”


End file.
